The Dream Has Gone
by vayshti
Summary: Hermione looks back on the choices she made after leaving Hogwarts. Characters aren't mine, but scenario and plotting is.


The Dream Has Gone  
  
A woman stood in her kitchen, shelling peas by hand.  
  
For you or I this would be fairly unusual - we are too used to buying frozen peas and popping them in the freezer, available at our convenience. However this kitchen did not have a fridge or freezer, and the woman had not seen frozen peas since she was eighteen - the last time she had seen her parents.  
  
Yet hand-shelling peas was a guilty pleasure for her as she possessed a wand and was expected to use it on these tasks that her mother-in-law considered a 'Muggle waste of time'. But Ron had taken Molly out on a rare day trip, and Hermoine had begged off sick. Now she had the Ottery St Burrow to herself. A single pea, rattling 'round in an empty pod.  
  
Hermoine enjoyed the snap of the pod, the zip of her fingernail along the seam and the dull ping of the peas as they shot into the bowl.  
  
Snap, zip, ping.  
  
Molly had been fine with Hermoine, or at least, kept her dislike of her in check, until Arthur had died in a work accident. The Weasley children met to decide what was to be done with 'our Mum'. She had fallen down the stairs a few years earlier breaking her back. Although the damage was magic- ed away, she remained weak and decidedly infirm. Wizards rarely had such horrible Muggle accidents and the magic had been experimental at best. It was decided that Ron and Hermoine, being the only childless couple and thus must easier to uproot and replant, should return to the family home to keep mum company.  
  
Molly resented the intrusion, not so much of Ron returning home, but of Hermoine. After Arthur's death the Burrow had been stripped of Muggle artefacts. Every item was either burnt or surrendered to the Ministry of Magic. Hermoine was also a Muggle artefact, and Molly would have liked to have thrown her out too.  
  
There were things that made the situation worse. Hermoine had failed to produce grandchildren for Molly to fuss over. Those lively redheads Hermoine was so sure she was going to have with Ron were still no more than dreams. Also, Hermoine had not been able to get another job since she moved to the Burrow, and now she could not escape the Burrow for more than a few minutes.  
  
'Burrow', she muttered, once a pig pen, always a pig pen. A sty by any other name would smell just as bad. Only thing holding this place up is magic.  
  
Snap, zip, ping. The burden of care, looking after 'our mum' had slowly fallen to her, and Molly made sure that Ron knew of every thing she considered Hermoine did wrong or deliberately did to hurt her.  
  
Ron would come home from his Ministry job with a grim smile on his face, 'and how are my two sour pusses?' he'd say in jest, in the only way the truth can be spoken. The question had an extra secret barb for Hermoine that Molly did not know about. The same phrase he'd used as an endearment when Hermoine still had Crookshanks. They were 'my two little sour pusses' and he'd scratch Crookshanks under her chin, and hold Hermoine close and kiss the top of her head.  
  
They'd got married a few months after they'd finished school. It seemed to make perfect sense at the time: finish school, get married, get good jobs, have our redhead kids. She should have listened to her parents. 'You're far too young to get married Hermoine! And we don't even know the boy'. Instead she cut off contact with them. Somehow it seemed more romantic.  
  
She had almost contacted them soon after she and Ron moved into the Burrow. She had suggested IVF treatment to Ron, and was going to get her parents to set it up. But Molly overheard them. Her hatred of muggle technology outweighed her wish for grandchildren. 'Look, mum's a bit funny at the moment, we can do it later when she's calmed down a bit'. But Molly never calmed down, and Ron never wanted the subject discussed again. He doesn't want children with me any more.  
  
If some wizard had come up to me when I was eleven and said 'Hey Hermoine, you're a bright girl, but the real world isn't as nice as Hogwarts. Hate of mudbloods is a lot closer to the surface than Dumbledore would have you believe. You'll only ever have one job as a civil servant, pushing a piece of paper from one side of your desk to the other. Your potential will be lost, and love doesn't last forever. Go back home to your parents - you'll do better there' would I have listened?  
  
It was too late to return to the Muggle world now. The airy secret of magic, so thrilling at school, had solidified into iron bars. She had no Muggle 'qualifications', no 'work history', and fudging the knowledge was one thing but she couldn't fudge the rest. Employers checked up on that type of thing.  
  
She should have followed Harry instead. When they were all celebrating having finished their schooling he was studying up for some 'baccylaureate' thing. 'It's the only way I can get into a Muggle university'. So he did his special test and was off. And no one seemed to care that they had driven him away.  
  
He didn't even come to their wedding. He instead sent Hedwig with his invisibility cloak. The cloak was for Ron, Hedwig for Hermoine - Harry's last reminders of the wizarding world. There was a special note for Hermoine that Hedwig let slip from under her arm one night when Ron was asleep next to her. If you ever change your mind, I'll be here.  
  
But would he still be waiting? Fifteen years had passed. If he'd sent any letters by post, they had been burnt by Molly. There had been no contact. He probably had kids already starting secondary school. Old Hedwig sat on the mantelpiece looking at Hermoine's hands going snap, zip, ping, snap, zip, ping. 'What do you say Hedwig? Would Harry still be there for me?'  
  
Hedwig tilted her head to one side, and then shook it. 'No, I didn't think so either'.  
  
Hermoine glanced at the clock. Ron and Molly would be back soon. She picked up her wand and spelled the kitchen clean. She pointed her wand at the peas, and they were cooked just right with mint and butter, although Molly would still complain. She pointed the wand at herself to clear away the red eyes, the frizzy hair and the pinched look around her mouth.  
  
'I'm just like this house Hedwig, it's only magic that holds me together now'. 


End file.
